They say that it’s the blond-haired Vikings who sailed ships up the rivers of Russia or into Ukraine via Poland that account for all those blond Russians. On the other hand, the Vikings who encountered women in Ireland led to the brunette or even red-headed Scandinavians. 

It’s the Vikings who sailed into Germany who accounted for the darker-haired Scandinavians, and there are certainly plenty of them in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Bjorn had the darkest head of hair of any Scandinavian-extraction guy I had ever seen. 

I had played squash in prep school in Green Bay, but it was the coaches at UMinn in Minneapolis who were more intent on recruiting me than the U. Wisconsin coaches had been. Besides, Minneapolis was farther away than Madison was, so me going to college there would make it less likely that my parents would bug me to come home weekends. I had learned how to do my own laundry since i was in middle-school, so I was spared from that reason to go home, too. 

Freshman year was great. The classes were great; I was doing well in them as well in the squash courts, and I was making friends. A couple of them offered the benefits I had had from team-mates senior year in prep school, so there was that too. 

It was only after I got back from winter break that I got approached to join the fraternity. Somehow, the word had gotten out that some of my friends were gay and upperclass gay men were recruiting other guys into their network. Things had been secretive years ago, but now the whole frat was openly proud on Pride Week. That included the brothers who were jocks, so nobody got harassed at UMinn. 

Everybody knows how stupid frat-pledging is, but nothing prepared me for big-brother pairing. We did the usual shit of scavenger hunts and silly public demeaning walking across the campus between classes, shirtless in March, when it was 20 degrees out on a warm day. We knew about downing shots of cheap bourbon, keeping up with brothers. 

Big-brother pairing occurred on a Friday night. All the pledges sat cross-legged in a circle, with only a small opening for the big brothers to walk through on their way to the center of the circle. All of us were nude. None of us pledges knew it, but the brothers had a hierarchy among them, and that was the order in which they came into the circle, one at a time. Each one carried out a bit of theater, making a circle, drilling his eyes into each one of us as he let the tension build. Finally, each brother chose the pledge that was going to be his little brother. He walked closer to that guy and reached down. The pledge was supposed to open his mouth and push out his tongue. The brother slid two fingers onto that tongue and into the pledge’s mouth, and the pledge had to suck on them, locking his eyes on their owner. 

Once those preliminaries were finished, the brother told the pledge that he could stand up and follow him out. The two of them went to that brother’s room in the frat-house. The next brother down the hierarchy followed the same show, and finally everyone was paired up. 

Once I saw the lust in Bjorn’s eyes, I knew that this was more than just a teasing exercise to humiliate the pledges one more way. As intended, a guy never does forget his big-brother pairing for the rest of his life. 

“Do you know why brothers put two fingers into a pledge’s mouth, Ronnyboy?” 

I was speechless, but I nodded. I surely knew where this was going. 

“Say it, boy! Hear yourself saying the words, boy-toy!” 

I closed my eyes for a moment, but I guess he knew to just wait for me to cross that line, so finally I said it, “So I’d be ready to suck your cock instead of your two fingers.” 

“Good boy! Pledges always do catch on once they put the fact that we’re all naked together with the finger-feeding.

“ ‘Course, there’s more than just my cock that’s gonna be in your mouth, too, right?” 

I felt the heat on my face as our eyes remained locked and I nodded again.

“Say it, boy. You need to say the words every time!” 

“Your jizz is gonna be in my mouth, Sir.” 

“Nicely said. I knew this would be good with you, but a guy can never tell if his pledge is gonna enjoy it, too, so that smile in your eyes tells me that you’re ready to enjoy things, too.” 

I was sitting cross-legged on the rug on his floor with my back against the side of his bed, so it was no surprise that he stepped closer and brought his pelvis toward my face and called out, “Put both your hands on the backs of my thighs and make love to my body, Ronnyboy.” 

He leaned forward and put both his hands onto the mattress as he leaned onto his outstretches arms. 

I started just rubbing my face from side to side across the anatomy of his crotch, taking in the aroma of his musk. He had no way of knowing that this was not my first rodeo, but I made full use of the things I had learned during my senior year in prep school. The more I got into things, the wilder he got, and the wilder he got the more he called me filthy names, and the more he did that, the wilder I got. 

What I hadn’t expected, was that after he flooded my mouth and I swallowed much of his cream and he smeared whatever I had drooled out all over my face and my balls, he took me into his bed. 

What I hadn’t expected was that when a big-brother feels that he’s had a satisfying bonding with his pledge, it would be his turn to consummate the bond between them and swallow his pledge’s semen and sperm. Of course, older and wiser that Bjorn was, that also involved lubed fingers up into my ass. I don’t think I’ve ever roared as loudly during sex as I did the four times I had sex with him that night. 

We were truly bonded-brothers forever after that. Even better, when a little brother felt lonely or just wanted to be held, he was free to slide back into his big-brother’s bed again, as long as there wasn’t any other visitor in it already. Bjorn’s furry black-haired body is something I’ve never forgotten, either. We both understood that “it was just sex” and nothing more, but it surely was intensely fulfilling sex each time, even as things evolved between us. 

What I hadn’t expected was that I would never have sex with any female lover that was as intense as it had been with Bjorn. 

It’s lucky that we both have business trips from time to time, and that one or another of us can coordinate vacation time with the other’s trips.  A boy never does forget his big-brother. 

I've been working in the Danish office of our international consulting services firm for twelve years. The Northern European office is in Copenhagen, but our branch office is in Aarhus, which is a university town with much cheaper office space and which has an extensive networks of commuter rail stations that allow travel into the center of town, and that's how most of get to work.

The office itself is a short walk from the central train station, built on stilts over a parking garage used by executives, each of whom has a designated space. My boss's space has a sign that says "Director of Operations/ Group 5." His assistant's space's sign says "Assoc. Dir Ops/ Logistics Mgr/ Grop 5." That space has been unused since last September, since the man who had that job was transferred to the Kazakhstan office, mainly dealing with oil, gas and agricultural exports, particularly wheat and dairy products.

One of the advantages of having a job in Europe is the proximity of other European travel destinations. Things are quiet in offices across northern Europe from mid-December to the second week in January, so I typically take a ski vacation in Switzerland from about December fifth to the fifteenth, since the resorts have plenty of snow then but the number of skiers is lower than the subsequent eight weeks. Once I get home, the slower pace of work allows me to catch up with all the paperwork and emails that built up while I was away. I always get into the office early after a skiing vacation and it always takes me close to a week to clear whatever has built up over a ten-day vacation.

I had forgotten that there had been notices about upgraded commuter-rail trains scheduled for the period I was going to be away, so when I stood on the Aarhus rail station and saw the new electric-blue locomotive approaching it seemed startling. If it had been grey, I would have thought it was a huge shark traveling the rails. The matching-blue cars lifted my spirits, even as I thought about the pile of work awaiting me.

Once I got off the train and walked to the office, I was startled again. Since I had come to work early to catch up on my backlog, the parking garage was almost empty, but the parking space for my supervisor was occupied. Facing the sign that designated the proper user of that space was a champagne-colored Porsche SUV hybrid with brown leather seats. Someone was new in town.

I headed upstairs and went into my office and turned on my computer. As it booted up, I started sorting the mail in my inbox; I'd only deal with the highest priority things before lunch. Once the desktop of the computer went past the company logo, I opened the incoming mailbox. The number one thousand, six hundred and seventy four at the bottom of the list of unread emails wasn't a surprise, and I scrolled down to the bottom of that list to get started. I had learned over the years to set an alarm on my iPhone for each hour of the first morning back at work. The only way to maintain sanity was to take a break from addressing emails at the end of each hour I worked on them. That was the time for a trip to the staff lounge for a double-espresso from the coffee-pod machine. I had finally broken the habit of whitening my coffee by the end of my first year at the office, and the coffee lounge always has packets of English shortbread cookies as well as Swedish ginger-snaps, so had slid into the European mold easily.

Chris came into the break-room half my way through the double-esprseso, when I had finished the first of the two shortbread cookies in the packet I had picked up. I caught my breath seeing him. He has black hair which is cut longer at the back of his head, creating curls at the back of his head draping down his neck, and a well-trimmed black beard that's thinned out as it covers his head, giving him something of a woodsman's look, rather than the usual sharply demarcated lower edge against a bare neck below it. My immediate fantasy was of having him straddling me on my back on a bed, with him hovering over my face as he leaned on outstretched arms.

Somehow, I managed to nod and say hello, and he reached out to shake my hand, introducing himself as my new supervisor. I felt a weakness in my legs, but somehow the Lord must have been holding me up, like a marionette held up by strings.

Brady

Once I had opened the photography studio in Trenton, New Jersey, I had posted ads in magazines in various genres, trying to solicit business. One ad was aimed at “executive photography” for corporate offices who wanted portrait photographs for their company pamphlets and websites. Another ad, for engagement and wedding photography, was posted in the usual bridal magazines. I also included ads in two magazines aimed at both gay men and gay women, offering both engagement and wedding photography as well as “candid” photographs, intending to let them see the inclusiveness I felt, especially in view of the recent political firestorms involving bakers who didn’t want to create wedding cakes for gay couples. Anyone who was looking at those magazines would understand that “candid” included photographs which included modeling in “clothing-optional” poses.

When I checked the website after the ads ran for the first times, I found two inquiry responses. I reached back to each of those potential customers, suggesting that we set up meetings to talk about what kinds of photographs they had in mind. They suggested that I come up to scout out several outdoor venues they had been thinking about, with the idea of doing the actual photo shoot in May when things would start to be in bloom.

What I hadn’t thought about, and what turned out to be a stroke of luck for me, was that a woman in the first pair of potential customers had known exactly where she wanted to have engagement pictures taken of her and her partner. She took the three of us to a park overlooking the Delaware river, which separates New Jersey from Pennsylvania. The park is an arboretum, so there are individual trees that are samples of their species that were intentionally planted to demonstrate their individuality. We walked among them and found locations where the two of them could hold hands as they walked while I took videos, or they could lean against a tree overlooking the water, reflecting the quiet solitude of sharing the park with each other.

The second couple were a pair of men, and they wanted to have photos taken at exactly the same park, with water views behind them, as well as the island in the river that houses the US Steel plant, and they wanted photos with that as the background, since one of the men worked there.

I hadn’t even knows that park existed, so they gave me a free view of a venue I could post onto my website as an enticement for further customers.

Several days later, there was a third response, from a man named Jeremy Howell. He wanted to set up a FaceTime call, which was fine with me. When the call opened, I saw a man who looked to be about fifty five, with a full head of silver hair and pale blue eyes. He must have had a laptop on his desk, since I could only see him from the mid-chest up, and he looked moderately trim and fit.

“Good morning, Mr. Howell, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine Brady, how are you? Thanks for doing this call on FaceTime, I wanted to see your eyes as we talked.”

“I’m doing well myself, A video-call is fine, Sir. How can I help you? What did you have in mind in terms of candid photography?”

“Well, I saw your ad, and I was impressed by your website. You seem to be younger than I expected, but I saw that you have pretty extensive experience.”

“Yes, Sir. I’ve been working in my parents’ studio since I was sixteen, so I’ve learned a lot from them over the last twelve years.”

“I saw on your website that you’ve done video photography at weddings. Is that something you’d be comfortable doing again? I know that you’re based in Trenton, would you be comfortable doing photography up here in northern New Jersey? We’re about an hour away from you.”

“Well, we photographed quite a few weddings in the Hamptons, and that’s four hours east of New York, and we lived in Westchester, so that was another hour north. What we did for those weddings or even for garden parties in the Hamptons or Sagamore Hill, which is pretty far out on the north shore of Long Island, was to block out several days for shoots and drive out two or three days in advance of an event and check out the venue the next day or two, and then drive home the day after the event, so the distance isn’t a problem for me. I’d have to schedule things on dates that would work for both of us, but I’m sure we could do that.”

“Have you ever been to a gentlemen’s club, Brady?”

I froze for a moment, but then I broke through the ice. “Yes, Sir, I have. I went to college at Princeton, and there are several gentlemen’s clubs in northern New Jersey.”

“There’s a gentlemen’s club in Livingston. Do you know where that is? “

“I do, Sir. I’ve actually been to Livingston.”

“I thought we might do some candid photography here if you came as a guest of mine, and we could see how that works out.”

I took a hefty gulp thinking about that and said, “That’s fine. As you said, perhaps we should start by thinking about what you had in mind at the gentlemen’s club.” I hadn’t thought about Brock or his chauffeur, Philip, for over five years.

“I’m one of the financial backers of our club, and there are quite a few colleges in New Jersey and New York. I’m sure there are gay young men in at least some of those schools, or even young faculty men who feel either intrigue or confusion about intergenerational sexuality between men, but we’re not seeing many of those men in our club. I’m not sure they understand what a gentlemen’s club is, for that matter. The sexuality of gay or bisexual men over the ages of thirty five or forty is different from the lustful exuberance of high school or prep-school boys, and the sexuality of men over fifty is a different thing, as well.

“In my experience, the young men who enjoy a gentleman’s club the most are men who come in the door with self-confidence and order a drink and sit alone while they let their eyes roam the lounge. They’re the young men who wait for an older man to join them and start a conversation, without thinking that they have to initiate flirting themselves.

“A gentleman’s not going to grope a younger man’s crotch. He’s more likely to lock his eyes onto that man’s eyes and press the back of a finger on the man’s lips and wait to see if the younger man will suck the knuckle into his mouth. Or, the man might press the back of a finger upward against the younger man’s nipple, waiting for each of them feel that nipple firming into a pebble, each knowing that the electric tingle from that nipple is going straight into the younger man’s nuts.

“Those are the ideas that we want to convey to potential visitors. We want them to feel that the club will welcome them, and the gentlemen there will see it as their obligation to make the younger man see stars before he leaves, and that a visit will be something he’ll remember for the rest of his life. It might also change his life forever, if he’s in the mood to let that happen.

“So that’s what we’re tying to create, and what I was hoping you could help us explore. Basically, we’re looking for a welcoming video to introduce our club to potential visitors in a way that would make them feel it’s a welcoming space.”

I thought back to the time I visited the gentlemen’s club in that estate in Livingston, west of Newark. I was lucky that I had been taken there by a senior in my eating club, the guy who had told me exactly that trick of buying a drink and sitting alone to wait for a gentleman to find me that Jeremy had just described.

Guys at school razzed me for a year after I got out of the man’s limousine the next morning when the chauffeur opened the door, and I’ve certainly remembered the whole encounter ever since.

I chuckled to myself when I thought about the way I teased the guys with the idea that I had been a gigolo for some lonely forty year old wife of an executive who was on a business trips in Frankfurt or Singapore. Even so, after that I always had the chauffeur pick me up or drop me off behind the post office in downtown Princeton, where no one from school would see the limo or could copy down the license plate so they could research who owned it.

Mr. Howell broke my daydream. “Then perhaps we could think about doing some further photography if you came to another club in Trenton. I don’t have an ownership interest, but I am on the board of that one. As you know, it’s the state capital, so there are quite a few men around the ages between twenty four and thirty eight who work in government. A lot of the staff are new here starting in the summers, typically after they’ve graduated either from college or from advanced degrees in one graduate program or another, so our hope was that we’d have a website videos up and running by the first of June, so those men, as well as new junior faculty in Philadelphia would be able to browse it in June and July and perhaps start coming to visit us by the middle of the summer.”

“The other thing that has interested me is the process by which younger men come to be comfortable flirting with older men. Perhaps you’ve seen how awkward young men can feel once they screw up their courage to walk through the door of a gay club or a pub, so what I was also intrigued by was almost showing them videoclips of how some men take the first steps in that kind of environment. Doing what feels like a documentary of videoclips to let young men see how other men initiate an encounter. I’ve met some men in town that I think would enjoy providing that kind of demonstration for younger men.

I caught my breath, but the smile took over my face. “That’s the greatest suggestion I’ve ever heard,” as I thought about the first steps I took when I initiated encounters with men. I wanted to close my eyes, turning off my awareness of how awkward I had been.

“Yes, Mr. Howell, I could do that over a weekend in April if you could set up some pairs of men who’d be comfortable doing those encounters in front of a videocamera. It can be a bit awkward for a man to flirt in front of a third man holding a camera.”

“Yes, I understand that. Let me work on it. We could do it in May if it would take that long to find candidates to play out those scenes. We already have a website manager, so you wouldn’t have to do any of that. If you burn the videos onto disks he can link them onto the website himself.

“Let me give you some instructions to get to the club in Livingston. It’s called The Knights’ Inn. Do you have something to write on?”

I froze. I forgot that he could see me on the video-call.

“Brady? Has something happened?”

The warmth washed over me, and I just spit it out. “No, Sir, I’m fine. I, uh, I don’t need instructions. I know where it is.” 

I guess he couldn’t hold back his smile. “Have you been there, Brady?”

He had been right at the beginning. The video-call had let him see my eyes, and it’s surely true that they’re the windows into a man’s soul. I just looked back at him and nodded.

“Well, that pleases me. It means that you’ll have your own personal understanding of both sides of the dynamic of the presentation we’re trying to create. I’m very glad I found you, son. I think you’re the perfect photographer for this job.”

It seemed natural for me to envision the view of watching his hands unbuttoning his shirt. Would he undo his belt, or would I be doing that?

Andrew and Kevin organized a backyard barbecue at their condo on Labor Day, since the faculty were all back in town and students had been arriving the whole weekend. Most of the people were faculty and their ‘significant others,’ but Kevin had included the four students who were doing senior honors projects under his supervision, and I was invited as Pete’s ‘significant other.’ Andrew had invited three grad students that he was supervising, as well.

Picnic tables had been arranged on their back lawn, and Pete and I sat with Bob and Justin once we got our hamburgers and hot dogs and pasta salad.

Bob had a warm look in his eyes when we shook hands, and Pete was happy to see him again. We told him about our time in New Hampshire during the summer, and Pete bragged about my photography work once I opened the studio in Trenton, so I had to explain.

“It’s picked up astonishingly. I had put some ads out starting in February, and Kevin had suggested that I create several separate lines of work that I could offer and advertise independently, and that’s been crucial to getting business.”

Bob scrunched up his forehead. “What does that mean?”

“Well, I created one line called ‘Creative Candids,’ which highlights candid photography. It’s linked to the main website I use, but I can advertise that kind of work in different places or in different ways than say the wedding photography I hope to build up, using a campaign called ‘Wedding Photos You’ll Remember.’ The problem is that weddings are planned months if not more than a year in advance, so people aren’t looking for wedding work that I can do soon. On the other hand, I could advertise candid photography for engaged couples or couples who are looking for photography they wanted done during the summer or in the next few months.

“Then, I’m hoping to build up a business in what’s called ‘executive photography,’ which means taking photos of executives that they would use for their corporate advertising or corporate websites, or even just for formal photographs they’d have around the house or that they could give to family members, but that’s the kind of work I advertise using the name ‘Executive Photography,’ posting those ads with the local Chamber of Commerce. There’s also a whole advertising niche called ‘community advertising,’ which specifically gears companies in advertising in their local regions, and I’ve reached out to companies who do that kind of work to offer services in doing photography for their clients. Then each of those lines of advertising are linked to my personal website that explains who I am and lays out my experience as a photographer.”

Bob said, “That’s great. I’m really glad for you, but you should be proud of doing all that, as well! We have an agency we use for doing that, and I’m sure they do that kind of ‘community advertising’ you describe.”

Pete chimed in. “He reached out to websites and some newsletters in the gay community in both Philadelphia and New York as well, and he’s gotten some work from doing that, too.”

Bob gave me a smile as he responded. “Every little bit helps, right? Our development company advertises all over the map too.”

Pete got up to get another drink, and Bob looked at me and said, “Are you okay? You looked a little spooked.”

I looked around and saw Pete on his way back, so I said, “I can’t talk about it now,” and I looked over and took the beer Pete brought me.

It was as we were leaving that Bob came up to me, ostensibly to shake hands and say goodbye when his left hand slipped a note into my breast pocket as he said, “Give me a call. We can meet for a beer.” 

I looked back at him and felt my breath catching as he smiled at me and said, “I’ve been to more than one rodeo.”

I had driven Pete to the barbecue, so I dropped him off at his place, saying that I had work to do on the website before classes began. When I parked outside my apartment, I killed the engine and sat in the cab and rolled my head back against the headrest, trying to collect my thoughts about Jeremy Howell. I had told Pete about the shoot at Jeremy’s club, but he didn’t ask me how I felt doing that shoot or being in a club, and I had never told him about the club in Livingston, either.

I could feel my heart racing on Tuesday morning, so I reached for the note Bob had given me and I called his cell. He answered saying, “Hi, Brady. How are you?”

“I’m a total jumble. I guess that’s what you saw yesterday. Can we find a time to talk? I don’t know whom else to talk to about something that’s come up.”

“Sure. There’s a wine bar in Trenton, and nobody who knows you or who knows Justin is likely to see us there. They sell draft beers, too. I can get off pretty close to five, you want to meet me there?”

“That sounds perfect,” and I took down the details.

Bob was sipping a twenty ounce beer when I walked in, and he said, “I didn’t know what your preferences in beer are, so I didn’t order you anything. Go up to the bar and order and she’ll deliver it here.”

I ordered the Carlsberg pilsner I had learned to drink in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, and sat with him, but he spoke first.

“You got spooked when Pete said you had reached out to gay websites and newsletters for your advertising campaign.”

I looked at him, but I knew I had to go slowly if I was going to keep myself together. “I did. It’s complicated, and Pete doesn’t know about a part of my life, and that makes it more complicated.”

“I won’t say a word. I’m just here for you, to support you getting through whatever it is, that’s all. I won’t even tell Justin, I promise.” His eyes were warm, and I knew I had to tell someone, so I went ahead.

“There are things no one knows, actually, but doing that shoot in Livingston brought too much of it all back.” I had to stop; I couldn’t rush through this.

“I had gone down to Philadelphia to try and scout out the gay bars and clubs there, and I went up to Newark as well. Most gay venues have a cork board where people can post things of general interest to the community. I wanted to see what kinds of postings they might have so I could see if there were newsletters or magazines where I could advertise, and I found three, so I created a website and I did post the ads for a photography studio that would do candid photography, as I told you. That’s broad enough so people know what it means, and if gay folks wanted a service, I was available for it.

“The third response I got was from a guy named Jeremy. We set up a FaceTime call, since he said he wanted to see the look in my eyes when we spoke. It turned out that he’s one of the backers of a gentlemen’s club in Livingston, and he wanted some publicity videos to let potential clients know what the club was like and know that it was a welcoming place. He was particularly interested in reaching out to college-age guys or young faculty men who were in schools in either New Jersey area or who were willing to drive out from New York.”

“Okay….”

“I went to college at Princeton, and I went to a gentlemen’s club there starting in my junior year. One of the seniors I knew brought me there, and I had an ongoing relationship with a man from the club starting then and going on for my whole senior year. Nobody ever knew. His chauffeur would pick me up in the parking lot behind the post office in town, and he’d drop me off at the same place either the next morning or at the end of a weekend. This guy, Jeremy Howell, is one of the owners of the same club, so I kind of froze when he told me the name of the club that was looking for a photographer. 

“I hadn’t thought about those college encounters for probably three years, but bringing it back made me remember the feeling of fulfillment and the knowledge of being wanted by an older and more worldly and more worthwhile man than I’ve ever been, and remembering all that has made me feel an emptiness in my soul that I haven’t felt since I was nineteen. The encounters there involved the executive who was probably around sixty, and some also included the chauffeur, who was under thirty, when I was twenty.”

Bob reached out and covered my forearm with his open hand, and I wiped away my tear with my other hand. He whispered, “Deep breaths. Let it happen. Let it wash over you,” as he handed me his black cloth napkin.

“I don’t know what to do, but the submissiveness and the melting into the body and the personality of an older man that I had in college is a different thing from sex that I had had with girls in high school or college or with guys since I was seventeen, and it’s not nothing, either. It was a part of my soul.There seem to be multiple facets to my soul, and I’m afraid of some of them myself. The chauffeur was like an older brother to me, but a brother I was involved with sexually, and that was something I craved. He always beat me at arm-wrestling, and gripped me hard into a headlock with one arm as his other fist dug into my abs, and he was the brother who leaned the full weight of his chest onto his arms as his hands held my shoulders down against the edge of the mattress while he skull-fucked me as he called me his cockwhore, while daddy spit-roasted my ass. He was the chauffeur who drove me back to Princeton wearing his grey livery, the two of us silent the whole way, making me stew in my subservience to him.

“I once got out of the limo on my own when he stopped it, and he had fire in his eyes when he came around the car and smacked me across the face, telling me never to do that again, and I never did. I was his boss’s plaything, and I was meant to act the part. He set the rules and implemented his boss’s rules, and initiative wasn’t mine to exercise. That submissive side of me exists, and I feel lost when I think about it.

“Can you understand any of this?”

Bob reached up and put two fingers across my lips, letting me know that I shouldn’t say anything more. He smiled and said, “Welcome to life, Brady. Let me tell you, many guys have conflicts within themselves, and many of us get spooked by things within ourselves, too. Plenty of guys are multi-faceted in our sexuality, and almost none of us admit it to anyone besides the guy in the mirror.

“The most reliable and wisest guy I know is my older brother, Nick. There was a time I was going through an inner conflict of my own, and I’ve never forgotten what Nick told me then. He told me that if I had fantasies about following a certain path in life, or if I felt conflicted about whether it was the best path for me, that I had to give it a try. He told me that the worst thing in a man’s life is for him to look back on it and to regret the opportunities he didn’t take. If an opportunity didn’t work out, then it wasn’t the right path for me, but I had to learn that it wasn’t for me, because otherwise I’d carry the regret of not having tried it for the rest of my life, and Nick was exactly right.

“I’ve been in situations in which I craved attention and respect from an older guy, but when I ran down that road it helped me to realize that my best prospects were to spend my life with Justin, and that’s exactly how it’s worked out. Nick gave me the idea of opening Justin’s awareness to the sexual things other men do that he could try doing with me if I admitted that they turned me on.”

“But I can’t go trekking up to Livingston all the time. It’s more than an hour each way.”

“Maybe you don’t have to. He told you about one that he visits in Trenton; you could go there, just saying that you were spending time at your studio.

“But now I’ve gotten a different idea. To what extent have you had time to hit the gym?”

“I’ve hardly ever had time. I was on the swim team in prep-school but I just swam to unwind while I was in college, and I never had enough time to hit the gym at the Y when I was working with my parents. Gym fees in Manhattan are off the roof, so I never joined a gym there.”

“Perfect. When a man realizes that he enjoys having another man in a somewhat submissive role, he also realizes that he needs to keep himself fit if he’s going to attract men like that. I’ll bet that Jeremy Howell goes to the gym at least on weekends to keep himself toned. How much of his torso did you see on that video call?”

“Just his upper chest and up.”

“See if you can set something up. See if you can spend some gym-time with him. Let it seem natural to watch him working out, and to watch him in the locker room or on his way back from a shower.” 

Once I got home, I leaned back on the couch, and somehow my left hand reached over to cup my right pec. Bob was right; it didn’t have the definition and the firmness that it used to have. 

If not now, then when? I texted Jeremy Howell. “Does that club in Trenton have a fitness room, the way the Knights’ Inn had in the basement?” I wasn’t going to ask about the facilities in the other part of the basement. I was sure the cubicles there still had  the same kinds of equipment they had ten years ago, even if some of it had been updated. The swings had been where I first fucked older men who craved my dick, and those were also where Brock had first taken me, after I agreed to wear the black leather collar he offered me. That had been the first time I spent the night with him, since he said I needed to have him caressing me as I incorporated all of it into my mind. He was right, as always.

He texted back. “Yes. Do you think you might need a gym-buddy to encourage you to work our regularly?” My fingers flew; that was exactly what I was thinking, and I said so.

I knew that he understood exactly what I was saying. My eyes went wide when he texted back.

“There’s a pavilion there too, with a heated pool. The club is in a wooded-estate, the same way the Knights’ Inn is, so everyone swims nude there, if you enjoy swimming laps to unwind.”

I guess we both knew that the next step after swimming laps was a body-oil rubdown. I’m sure the massage rooms at the club are also kept warm. My phone dinged with another text.

“I’m going to be there later today. Do you want to come as my guest?”

I didn’t have the balls to actually write it out, so I just sent him a smily-emoji. He sent back a thumbs-up emoji, with a text saying he’d be there just after four, and gave the address.

How early could I go there without looking too needy? What should I wear as I drove there. Were there lockers for guys to put their street-clothes into before they went into the lounge room, or the bar, or the fitness facility? Did guys work out in just jocks? I chuckled when I thought about the underwear some guys had worn in Livingston, with open areas over the crotch of over their ass, or both? Luckily, I did have navy-mesh jocks. I never have felt comfortable running on a treadmill or using an elliptical trainer with my cock and balls swinging around because I”m commando inside my gym-shorts. Besides, I wanted the mesh hugging my nuts as I lifted weights; the last thing I wanted was a hernia. 

I got to the club at twenty after four. I walked into the fitness room not too long after, just wearing my jock, and Jeremy was the only one there, wearing a black jock with red edging, emphasizing his pouch. I froze when he locked his eyes onto mine. He pointed to the treadmill next to his, and I knew he’d talk me through this once I started jogging, matching his speed, even if I had to work myself up to that. The aroma of his sweat mixed with his sandalwood cologne washed over me, and I knew that I had found a fulfillment I hadn’t felt for years, if ever.

Jeremy spoke softly as he asked the first question. “How old were you the first time you went to the Knights’ Inn?” 

“Twenty.” 

“That’s a very nice age. How did you learn of it?”

“A buddy in college had been there before, and he arranged for me to come.”

“And you met a special man there; didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“And what was his name?”

I looked at Jeremy and raised an eyebrow. “I was told that it was a secret between us, and that it was never to be divulged. I agreed that if I ever divulged his name to any living person then it was my obligation to kill myself by jumping off the George Washington Bridge, and that every time I had the bridge in my view I should remember that pledge.”

“Well, that would be a binding pledge if you entered into it of your own free will, but were there any witnesses to you having made that pledge?”

I felt the way my eyes had gone wide, and I nodded to him.

“Did you make any pledges about the identity of the witness or witnesses?”

I shook my head, and saw the smile lines outside his eyes. “One witness, or more than one?” 

“Only one.”

“And who was he?”

“He was the man’s chauffeur. He drove me back to the Princeton campus, but later on he picked me up and dropped me off in the parking lot of the post office in town. Guys in the dorm had seen me getting out of the limo the first morning, and I gave them a story about me having been a gigolo for a woman who was in her forties, but he couldn’t risk having someone see the limo’s license plate and tracing it back to his boss.”

“And the man and the chauffeur had given you a four-handed massage, I presume?”

I nodded. I never expected what Jeremy said next.

“I don’t have a chauffeur, but the man who’s my personal assistant is the son of a justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey. He’s very good at massage, himself.”

I grabbed the side-bars of the treadmill so I wouldn’t fall. It seemed natural to wonder whether his father was one of the other financial backers of the Knights’ Inn. Jeremy touched the controls on his treadmill, and then touched the ones on mine. “We should both cool down some.” He slowed both treadmills sequentially, and then stopped each one. I just stood there, waiting for my breathing to calm.

“Go back to the locker room and grab your clothes. I’ll meet you with my car at the front door. Put your clothes on the back seat and get into the passenger seat next to me.”

I gave him one quick look and a quick nod. I surely wanted the aroma of two sweated-up men as well as his cologne filling my nostrils as we drove. The front seat had been tilted backward at about forty-five degrees when I got in.

“Lean back, and lean your head against the headrest. Open your legs some so the sweat of your inner thighs and your crotch can permeate the air.”

I did as I was told. Jeremy drove using his left arm and hand, and his right fingernails teased the top of my thigh and my inner left knee. I let my hand cup his forearm and tried to pull his hand northward, but he resisted me. He finally said, “Not yet.”

I relaxed, to the extent I could. The pouch of my jock was swollen, and my nips were pebbles, even as I felt the sweat of my chest cooling.

By the time I was face-down on his massage table, my pulse had calmed down. He had wanted me to leave the jock on, so I did, and his voice was gentle. “It’ll just be me for the massage this time, Brady. This will just be between you and me for now.” I felt the warmth of the body oil he dripped onto my shoulder blades and the line of my spine. His fingers were strong as they worked me over, and I was breathing slowly.

“Press your forehead against the face-frame, and pull your chin toward your chest. His thumb and fingertips kneaded the muscles at the back of my neck as I did that, and let out a soft whimper. He moved to the head of the table and let his splayed fingers knead my back, as my legs opened a bit on their own.

His thumbs slid down the center of my back, and I felt the pressure of his body against my head. He must have grabbed the bottle of oil, because I felt the warmth of it spilling into the crease of my ass. His hands slid up my back again, heading to my armpits, as my arms hung down. I couldn’t hold back the whimper or the shudder when his fingertips played with me there.

I felt his scratchy face rubbing across my mid-back, and I gasped when his teeth gnawed on my flank, just north of my right hip, as my glutes flexed. I let out a choking sound from deep in my throat when his middle finger pressed into the crease of my ass, with the fingertip tapping my hole, making me snort.

I felt him moving toward my left shoulder as he whispered. “Relax and press back a bit; open up for me.” I had barely tried to do that when the finger slid in and I trembled. He worked it from side to side as I gasped for air, and my pelvis started swaying on its own. The back of his finger rubbed across my gland inside and I knew at that moment that he’d make me drain my balls at least the usual four times that Brock made me explode.

What I hadn’t expected was that he’d keep my jizz-soaked jock pouch as a trophy. I guess he knew that whenever my eyes lit onto his in the future I’d remember that he had my strap, and I’d think back to this first encounter.

And that’s exactly how it played out.